LIFE-SPAN DEVELOPMENT
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Chapter 16
Socioemotional Development in
Middle Adulthood
Chapter Outline
Personality Theories and Adult Development
Stability and Change
Close Relationships
3
Personality Theories and Development 1
Stages of adulthood
The life-events approach
Stress and personal control in midlife
Contexts of midlife development
4
Personality Theories and Development 2
Stages of adulthood
Erikson’s generativity versus stagnation
Generativity: adults’ desire to leave legacies to the next generation.
• Developed in a number of ways:
• Biological generativity.
• Parental generativity.
• Work generativity.
• Cultural generativity.
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Personality Theories and Development 3
Levinson’s seasons of a man’s life
Transition to middle adulthood lasts: conflicts.
• Being young versus being old.
• Being destructive versus being constructive.
• Being masculine versus being feminine.
• Being attached to others versus being separated from them.
How pervasive are midlife crises?
• The 40s are a decade of reassessing and recording truth about adolescent and
adult years.
• Only a minority of adults experience a midlife crisis.
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Personality Theories and Development 4
Individual variations
Middle-aged adults interpret, shape,
alter, and give meaning to their
lives.
In one-third of cases where
individuals report experiencing a
midlife crisis.
• Triggered by life events such as job
loss, financial problems, or illness.
©altrendo images/Getty Images 7
Personality Theories and Development 5
The life-events approach
Contemporary life-events approach: how life events influence the
individual’s development depends on
• Life event itself.
• Mediating factors.
• Individual’s adaptation to the life event.
• Life-stage context.
• Sociohistorical context.
8
Personality Theories and Development 6
The life-events approach
Drawbacks
Life-events approach places too much emphasis on change, not adequately
recognizing stability.
It may not be life’s major events that are the primary sources of stress.
• Daily experiences.
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Personality Theories and Development 7
Stress, personal control, and age
• Middle-aged adults experience more overload stressors that involve juggling
too many activities at once.
• Some aspects of personal control increase with age while others decrease.
Stress and gender
Fight-or-flight: type of behavior men engage in when they experience stress.
Become aggressive, socially withdraw, or drink alcohol.
Tend-and-befriend: type of behavior women engage in when they experience
stress.
• Seek social alliances with others.
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Personality Theories and Development 8
Contexts of midlife development
Historical contexts (cohort effects)
Changing historical times and different social expectations influence.
• How different cohorts move through the life span.
Social clock: timetable according to which individuals are expected to accomplish
life’s tasks.
Gender contexts
• Stage theories have a male bias.
• Demands of balancing career and family usually not experienced as intensely
by men.
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Personality Theories and Development 9
Cultural contexts
Concept of “middle age” is
unclear or absent in many
cultures.
• Common in nonindustrialized
societies to describe
individuals as young or old but
not as middle-aged.
©Corbis/VCG/Getty Images 12
Levinson’s Periods of Adult Development 1
Late adult transition: Age 60 to 65
• Era of late adulthood: 60 to ?
Middle adult transition: Age 40 to 45
• Culminating life structure for middle adulthood: 55 to 60.
• Age 50 transition: 50 to 55.
• Entry life structure for middle adulthood: 45 to 50.
Early adult transition: Age 17 to 22
• Culminating life structure for middle adulthood: 33 to 40.
• Age 30 transition: 28 to 33.
• Entry life structure for early adulthood: 22 to 28.
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Levinson’s Periods of Adult Development 2
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(Top to bottom) ©Amos Morgan/Getty Images; ©Corbis/VCG/Getty Images; ©Thomas Northcut/Getty Images 14
Emotional Instability and Age
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Age and Well-Being
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A Contemporary Life-Events Framework for
Interpreting Adult Developmental Change
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The Ten Most Frequent Daily Hassles of
Middle-Aged Adults over a Nine-Month Period
Daily Hassles Percentage of Times Checked
Concerns about weight 52.4
Health of family member 48.1
Rising prices of common goods 43.7
Home maintenance 42.8
Too many things to do 38.6
Misplacing or losing things 38.1
Yardwork/outside home maintenance 38.1
Property, investment, or taxes 37.6
Crime 37.1
Physical appearance 35.9
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The Ten Most Frequent Daily Uplifts of
Middle-Aged Adults over a Nine-Month
Period
Daily Uplifts Percentage of Times Checked
Relating well with your spouse or lover 76.3
Relating well with friends 74.4
Completing a task 73.3
Feeling healthy 72.7
Getting enough sleep 69.7
Eating out 68.4
Meeting your responsibilities 68.1
Visiting, phoning, or writing someone 67.7
Spending time with family 66.7
Home (inside) pleasing to you 65.5
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Individuals’ Conceptions of the Best Age
for Major Life Events and Achievements:
Late 1950s and Late 1970s 1
Activity/event Appropriate
age range
Percent of men
who agree with
the late ’50s
study
Percent of
women who
agree with the
late ’50s study
Percent of men
who agree with
the late ’70s
study
Percent of
women who
agree with the
late ’70s study
Best age for a man
to marry
20 to 25 80 90 42 42
Best age for a
woman to marry
19 to 24 85 90 44 36
When most people
should become
grandparents
45 to 50 84 79 64 57
Best age for most
people to finish
school and go to
work
20 to 22 86 82 36 38
When most men
should be settled
on a career
24 to 26 74 64 24 26
When most men
hold their top jobs
45 to 50 71 58 38 31
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Individuals’ Conception of the Best Age for
Major Life Events and Achievements: Late 19
50s and Late 1970s 2
Activity/event Appropriate
age range
Percent of men
who agree with
the late ’50s
study
Percent of
women who
agree with the
late ’50s study
Percent of men
who agree with
the late ’70s
study
Percent of
women who
agree with the
late ’70s study
When most people
should be ready to
retire
60 to 65 83 86 66 41
When a man has
the most
responsibilities
35 to 50 79 75 49 50
When a man
accomplishes most
40 to 50 82 71 46 41
The prime of life
for a man
35 to 50 86 80 59 66
When a woman has
the most
responsibilities
25 to 40 93 91 59 53
When a woman
accomplishes the
most
30 to 45 94 92 57 48
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Stability and Change 1
Longitudinal studies
Conclusions
©Noel Vasquez/Stringer/Getty Images 22
Stability and Change 2
Longitudinal studies
Costa and McCrae’s Baltimore Study
• Focused on the “Big Five” factors of personality.
Berkeley Longitudinal Studies
Intellectual orientation, self-confidence, and openness to new experience were the more
stable traits.
Characteristics that changed the most:
• Extent to which individuals were nurturant or hostile.
• Whether or not they had good self-control.
Cumulative personality model of personality development
People get better at interacting in ways that promote stability with their
environment as they age.
More stability in personality at midlife.
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Stability and Change 3
Helson’s Mills College Study
Three main groups of women:
• Family-oriented.
• Career-oriented.
• Neither path.
George Vaillant’s Studies
Conducted on sample of
• 268 socially advantaged Harvard graduates born about 1920.
• 456 socially disadvantaged inner-city men born about 1930.
• 90 middle-SES, intellectually gifted women born about 1910.
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The Big Five Factors of Personality 1
Openness
• Imaginative or practical.
• Interested in variety or routine.
• Independent or conforming.
Conscientiousness
• Organized or disorganized.
• Careful or careless.
• Disciplined or impulsive.
Extraversion
• Sociable or retiring.
• Fun-loving or somber.
• Affectionate or reserved.
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The Big Five Factors of Personality 2
Agreeableness
• Softhearted or ruthless.
• Trusting or suspicious.
• Helpful or uncooperative.
Neuroticism (emotional stability)
• Calm or anxious.
• Secure or insecure.
• Self-satisfied or self-pitying.
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Close Relationships 1
Love and marriage at midlife
The empty nest and its refilling
Sibling relationships and friendships
Grandparenting
Intergenerational relationships
27
Close Relationships 2
Love and marriage at midlife
• Security, loyalty, and mutual emotional interest are more important in
middle adulthood.
• Most married individuals are satisfied with their marriages during
midlife.
• Divorce rate has decreased for young adults but increased for middleaged adults.
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Close Relationships 3
The empty nest and its refilling
Empty nest syndrome: decrease in marital satisfaction after children
leave the home.
• Parents derive considerable satisfaction from their children.
Refilling of empty nest is common.
• Loss of privacy.
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Close Relationships 4
Sibling relationships and friendships
• Sibling relationships may be extremely close, apathetic, or highly
rivalrous.
• Friendships that have endured over adult years tend to be deeper.
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Close Relationships 5
Grandparenting
Grandparent roles and styles.
Three prominent meanings:
• Source of biological reward and continuity.
• Source of emotional self-fulfillment.
• Remote role.
Three grandparenting styles:
• Formal.
• Fun-seeking.
• Distant-figure.
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Close Relationships 6
Grandparenting
The changing profile of grandparents:
• Most common reasons grandparents step in as parents include their child’s
divorce, adolescent pregnancy, and/or drug use.
• Full-time grandparenting has been linked to health problems, depression, and
stress.
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Close Relationships 7
Intergenerational relationships: important in development
Middle-aged adults express responsibility between generations.
Midlife adults play important roles in the lives of the young and the old.
Relationships between aging parents and their children.
• Characterized by ambivalence.
Close Relationships 8
Intergenerational relationships
Differences in gender:
• Mothers and daughters have closer relationships during adult years.
• Married men more involved with wives’ families than with their own.
• Grandparent–grandchild relationships.
• Mothers’ intergenerational ties more influential.
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